The general idea is a similar texture scheme to the early levels of Descent 1, but having to fight all the big robots you don't see in that part of the original game.

That's cool! Kinda what we were aiming for with the Haumea level, except it won't be THAT hard, since it's still the solar system, so it can't be excessively difficult by definition. Sigh... once again I'm reminded of homeyduh and how suddenly he just went AWOL

Well, I've got the level up now. Robot placements are a little scarce for the most part but devious -- if you're playtesting on a high difficulty you should watch your back.
I did use the maximum number of segments again, but this time I managed to find space for a few more secrets.

Alter-Fox wrote:Well, I've got the level up now. Robot placements are a little scarce for the most part but devious -- if you're playtesting on a high difficulty you should watch your back.
I did use the maximum number of segments again, but this time I managed to find space for a few more secrets.

Ok, lemme check it out! I usually playtest on lower difficulties, it's just exploration of the geometry for the most part after all. Real playtesting will come when we're in the "beta" I guess

EDIT:

Yeah, so the level is splendid as always, the texturing is really cool, and not something the likes of which I've ever seen thus far (I think), the geometry and progression of the level are sweet too. Two questions:
- have both kinds of D2's doorlights (the rounded edges one and the wide, square one) ever been used by Parallax in the same level? I can't recall, but if they have, this is fine
- seeing as what the texture scheme in the level is, was there any reason not to go with descent.pig? Now this was a rhetorical question - there wasn't

Mmm... I actually went with ice.pig intentionally so the D1 textures would look just a little bit more alien.
As for the door lights -- level 15 of D2 used both the "ice" and regular lights but only the green and "broken" regulars were used. Secret level four used a mix of the two all over the place. Those were the only two levels in counterstrike, as far as I can tell, to use the "ice" lights at all.
Level 1 of vertigo used a mix too -- and it looks like a bunch more did too. I think I'm ok.

Seriously though, the D1 bright gray doesn't look good in any other PIG except for Descent 1's. I can dig you wanting to go for an alien look, but there are other textures better at that which don't get distorted in ice.pig. My personal opinion is that the level would look much better in descent.pig, but I'm willing to let the others chime in too

Also, I do realize you have a huge bias in favor of ice levels, but in all honesty you'd probably have achieved the same effect if you'd gone with groupa or water

EDIT: You're wrong about level 1 of Vertigo though, I just played through it and all the doorlights in it were of the rectangular variety.

Aaah, I just looked at "used textures" in DLE and saw both in there. I didn't realise there was just one.
Thanks for the clarification LW.

Vertigo 15 should use both; from what I can see the blue door uses the zeta aquilae lights and yellow and red use the D2L15 version.
Until I looked, I had no idea that 15 was the only regular level of descent 2's campaign to use those.

Xfing if you want to switch it to descent.pig you can go ahead, I didn't think the textures looked that bad. I would like to have a version I can test out in D2X-XL in the meantime though, which still seems to require switching to a descent 2 palette even when the level has only hi-res textures and doesn't use the palette at all. :-/

Alter-Fox wrote:Aaah, I just looked at "used textures" in DLE and saw both in there. I didn't realise there was just one.
Thanks for the clarification LW.

Vertigo 15 should use both; from what I can see the blue door uses the zeta aquilae lights and yellow and red use the D2L15 version.
Until I looked, I had no idea that 15 was the only regular level of descent 2's campaign to use those.

Xfing if you want to switch it to descent.pig you can go ahead, I didn't think the textures looked that bad. I would like to have a version I can test out in D2X-XL in the meantime though, which still seems to require switching to a descent 2 palette even when the level has only hi-res textures and doesn't use the palette at all. :-/

I could do it, I've also noticed some misalignments of the D1 light gray texture, which do look more pronounced in any other palette than Descent's native one, because the texture's pattern looks more pronounced. I do realize you've used this texture with one of the D2 palettes in one of your earlier levels, but it was used sparingly so it's alright. But there was good reason for why Parallax didn't include this texture in the D2 roster, unfortunately. I'll take a look at the level this evening.

Great.
Would recommend playing it between hotshot and insane at least once so you can get a picture of how the robot placements are set up. Who knows, you might decide they're so devious you can just leave them as-is.

Alter-Fox wrote:Great.
Would recommend playing it between hotshot and insane at least once so you can get a picture of how the robot placements are set up. Who knows, you might decide they're so devious you can just leave them as-is.

Even while playing on Trainee the robot roster did seem appropriate for this far into the mission. Though to be quite honest, it did seem pretty far out, probably harder than anything in Counterstrike Not that I mind, this mission pack is so long that it has room to span the entire difficulty spectrum from "baby" to "please kill me"

Alter-Fox wrote:Well, they're placed so that you get attacked from behind a lot too...
I often had one robot used as bait and one or two others behind cover nearby.

To be fair, Parallax missions usually gave you cloaks or invulnerabilities if they put you in situations like this.

But streamlining the difficulty aside, I took a look at the level and ironed out the texture misalignments. I'll add a separate version to the folder in a moment so that people can compare the two palette versions and say which one looks better.

EDIT: Ok, done. Changed the palette to descent.pig and reloaded the custom textures. I removed the custom texture that was changed into rock162, because rock162 is in Descent 2's PIGs natively, so it was not necessary in the first place. I've noticed some further minor misalignments that could be tweaked, but I'll wait until we decide which palette to go with. The files are in the folder "Level 46".

I will sit this choice out since I have my own bias toward the Descent 2 palettes. I'd like to hear what others think anyhow.
Thanks for ironing out the textures -- I wasn't aware there were any more really glaring misalignments apart from the inevitable secondary-texture based ones.

Well considering the most frequent visitors to this thread, I think we'll see what Naphtha, Kaizer, Sirius and Lightwolf think, if they're inclined to contribute.

I don't think I'm biased against the D2's six original PIGs, but for one, I do appreciate the novelty of Pumo's palette, and for two I think that it really does fit this particular level specifically. But if there turns out to be more support for the Ice version, we'll go with Ice.

I have found one problem with your realignments involving secondary textures near the blue key. Keeping my eyes out for more -- four eyes are always better than two.
I can fix any I find but it might not be for a few days.

EDIT: There are a few misalignments on the matcen "bleedings" as well, especially the one near the start.

Re: palette, it depends what look you want the level to have. For D1 textures (which show up a lot in the level), they look more "classic"/"D1" if you use the original palette. Many aren't appreciably different in ice but I noticed a few that seemed more washed-out or monochromatic, probably due to less coverage of that range of the palette. On the other hand, the blues are deeper in ice, and obviously you get slightly different-looking weapon fire as well if you wanted that. More of the feel of the level seems to come from lighting than palette choice though.

No particular preference from my perspective, I don't know which is more appropriate or intended.

I tried looking through all the palette choices myself, and surprisingly, the D1-exclusive textures held up pretty nicely. I think it really comes down to how bright or muted you want the bluish textures to look (including the dark purple tile-like wall texture from D2). If we're only to choose between the D1 palette and the Ice palette, I'll vote for the D1 palette for this level. But if this is comparing every palette, another one I liked was GroupA... and you could even think about Alien1 or Alien2, if you want to give the icy blue textures from D1 a more faded or grungier feel.

I agree that the blues are much more vivid in Ice, Groupa would also probably not look that bad. But what bothered me primarily is the bright gray texture and the choice doors in this level, they do look somewhat weird in Ice.

Had some bouts of inspiration this weekend, and churned out the yellow and red key areas for Reactor Ohm. Not sure if the color schemes and design fit with the level, but I'm working at it. Just gotta finish off the reactor area, get some secrets and traps in there, and I'll upload a demo. I think I've got about 200 cubes left, so it shouldn't be a problem.

I had some extra ideas for how the mission can be reworked for D2X-XL (since it will have to be anyway to get all the hi-res D1 textures in there and then get that PIG working if it's still needed afterward -- more can be done in the process).
A couple simple hub worlds like dimensional intersect, if they're done right, could be a great idea for making the mission feel more connected and cohesive than a simple series of 50-odd PTMC mines. It wouldn't require very much extra work -- I could even probably handle it myself -- and we certainly will have the time to get them ready.
Planning to post a more detailed general document on this to the dropbox as well as specific flowcharts (!!!) for each chapter to explain how I envision this working. It's easier to visualize it that way and I don't want to completely give away the idea to all our potential players.
I think it will work very well if we decide to do it.

Alter-Fox wrote:I had some extra ideas for how the mission can be reworked for D2X-XL (since it will have to be anyway to get all the hi-res D1 textures in there and then get that PIG working if it's still needed afterward -- more can be done in the process).
A couple simple hub worlds like dimensional intersect, if they're done right, could be a great idea for making the mission feel more connected and cohesive than a simple series of 50-odd PTMC mines. It wouldn't require very much extra work -- I could even probably handle it myself -- and we certainly will have the time to get them ready.
Planning to post a more detailed general document on this to the dropbox as well as specific flowcharts (!!!) for each chapter to explain how I envision this working. It's easier to visualize it that way and I don't want to completely give away the idea to all our potential players.
I think it will work very well if we decide to do it.

Ok lemme get this straight, you're talking strictly about a complete reinterpretation for D2X-XL here? Because I'm pretty dead set on the current story progression with visiting the pre-existing star systems for the Rebirth version. Story is supposed to be secondary in this mission pack, unlike in most user-made missions over the years. From the perspective of the player it'll just be another clean-up mission to take care of unexpected outbursts of the virus that Dravis had considered accounted for. Probably set right before or during Mercenary, since D3 takes place immediately after D2 - we'll pin all of this down. Anyway, perhaps I should write my own outline of the story and upload it to dropbox too.

Lol Kaiz that is true.
And Xfing, the way I have this plotted out won't really interfere with that, as each of the boss levels will wind up being "bottlenecks" in the progression anyway. You'll see what I mean when I've got this all descriptioned. I've thought of this stuff. And more stuff. And other stuff too!
And yes it is a reinterpretation, if only because Rebirth would not be capable of something like that. And like with my experiment with the name and lighting of level 46, or Descent 2 Counterstrike as a whole, the idea here is not to tell a story, only to imply that one exists.

Alter-Fox wrote:Lol Kaiz that is true.
And Xfing, the way I have this plotted out won't really interfere with that, as each of the boss levels will wind up being "bottlenecks" in the progression anyway. You'll see what I mean when I've got this all descriptioned. I've thought of this stuff. And more stuff. And other stuff too!
And yes it is a reinterpretation, if only because Rebirth would not be capable of something like that. And like with my experiment with the name and lighting of level 46, or Descent 2 Counterstrike as a whole, the idea here is not to tell a story, only to imply that one exists.

Okay! If only XL can do this, then we'll just proceed as planned for Rebirth and maybe make a separate XL release under a slightly, slightly different name or something.

Layout for Reactor Ohm is mostly complete! I'm adding traps and secrets now, got about 50 cubes to work with, and I'm pretty happy with it. Some of the secrets are obvious, some not not much! I sat for about 2 hours on Sunday mapping out the reactor room and approach to it, the texture work took a bit too. I'll have it up for a fly-through soon.

Are we planning on adding Full Maps to the levels like The Enemy Within did for most of theirs?

LightWolf wrote:Mine abandoned by PTMC and removed from nav charts...
Mine springs up out of nowhere because of whatever reason...
Whatever happened requires you to destroy it...
...great boss setup...

Just sayin'

While I totally agree, since the boss is in the very next level it has settle for meaning that something else evicted PTMC from their own mine so they could live in it (notice all the lights on the upper floor are still working perfectly despite PTMC having abandoned this mine for a lot longer than the other ones you're going to). Something whose very existence would be so damaging to PTMC that they had to pull in some serious favours to ensure no-one outside that planet ever heard of it again. Unfortunately for those folks, the virus doesn't need star charts.
I don't think there's anything stopping us from setting N'tala Shadowy Corridor on the same planet though.

Kaizerwolf wrote:Layout for Reactor Ohm is mostly complete! I'm adding traps and secrets now, got about 50 cubes to work with, and I'm pretty happy with it. Some of the secrets are obvious, some not not much! I sat for about 2 hours on Sunday mapping out the reactor room and approach to it, the texture work took a bit too. I'll have it up for a fly-through soon.

Are we planning on adding Full Maps to the levels like The Enemy Within did for most of theirs?

Full Maps will definitely be featured, just like any other power-up. Not sure how prolific they will be though. Definitely gonna add one right in front of the player spawn point in every level for beta-testing, so that you can easily find every nook and cranny. But in the final release they'll likely be used much more sparingly, kinda like they were in Counterstrike maybe. Not sure about that, honestly. Well, they'll probably be featured in levels with difficult to find secrets - D1 levels don't really need them, since secrets in these levels are almost never particularly tricky to find by design.

Kaizerwolf wrote:I'd like to request another level:

08: Solar System 8: Umbriel Tholin Research

I haven't done one in a D1 style yet, and I do like doing some tighter stuff every now and then. What sort of color scheme would this one have?

Well... it's on Uranus. When it comes to levels from systems existing in D1, we go with what was shown in First Strike. We create new themes altogether only for levels on dwarf planets not visited in First STrike. So look for inspiration in Miranda and Oberon mines Marking the level for you ^^

BTW, I did some minor fixes on level 46 including the ones we discussed, feel free to take a look if you think it's fixed. I didn't really see any problem with matcen bleedings though, the alignment was at the very least passable. Not sure if I've fixed the secondary texture alignments next to the blue key well enough, you'll need to check it out.

I went with the original, ice palette to respect Foxy's vision. Now I'll be wrapping up my work on retexturing LightWolf's Varuna level and converting it to D2. Hell, it does need some secondary mapping too.

ΕDIT: Aaaaand done. The conversion took a while, but the fun part was changing the texture theme. It turned out quite interesting. Check out the level for yourselves and see how it looks and plays. It's level 13.

This level looks so much like Descernt 1 that I caught myself trying to put in D1 cheats while playing it after the conversion. Yeah

Hey guys, Reactor Ohm is up for a flythrough. Level 48 folder, reacohm.hog and .mn2. There's 5 secrets to find, 799 cubes, give it a fly through! Any section where doors or walls open by flying around should have bots/matcens. Let me know what you think!

I did, however, notice that what was intended as an alternate exit with a portal behind it was removed. (The exit with the red X-grated walls behind it hidden near the boss)

Yeah, I did do that, for now. Mainly because I decided to change the floor texture there. Don't worry too much though, there's a chance it'll get reintroduced later on. We'll probably decide which levels to have portals in much later down the line.

I had an interesting thought... What if the first D2 weapons actually appeared as secrets in Sedna? (I wouldn't mind a couple mercs or something like that)

Naaaaah. Sedna is remote enough, which is shown enough by it having some D2 textures in it. But D2 weapons are going to be pretty OP, so we're holding back on them until Zeta Aquilae.

Kaizerwolf wrote:Hey guys, Reactor Ohm is up for a flythrough. Level 48 folder, reacohm.hog and .mn2. There's 5 secrets to find, 799 cubes, give it a fly through! Any section where doors or walls open by flying around should have bots/matcens. Let me know what you think!

Glorious! I need to take care of something now, but I'll be back in a couple hours and definitely check it out.

Ok, I flew through Reactor Ohm. Very nice level for as always, that's for sure I think I saw a minor misalignment in one place, gonna fix it right away. The level isn't very heavy on secrets though, but that's a thing with all of your levels. The only secret I figured out how to get was the guided missile tunnel. Very interesting texturing there too. Couldn't figure out how to get the grate in the large door in the blue area to open, but I only flew through the level once .

Strong Vertigo feels for sure, this level is going to be a banger Would be nice to figure out how Lightwolf did that seamless water thingy though, that would help in all levels containing water.

Also, while last time I wasn't as justified (perhaps), this time I really do think the level would look better with Descent than with Fire. It contains no D1 POGs, so conversion would be trivial.

Xfing wrote:Ok, I flew through Reactor Ohm. Very nice level for as always, that's for sure I think I saw a minor misalignment in one place, gonna fix it right away. The level isn't very heavy on secrets though, but that's a thing with all of your levels. The only secret I figured out how to get was the guided missile tunnel. Very interesting texturing there too. Couldn't figure out how to get the grate in the large door in the blue area to open, but I only flew through the level once .

There are 5 in total. The guided missile one is pretty obvious since I added some guideds at the beginning. There's a small door in the yellow key room to open that grate. I should probably put powerup placeholders in the spots where there are secrets, huh?

Strong Vertigo feels for sure, this level is going to be a banger Would be nice to figure out how Lightwolf did that seamless water thingy though, that would help in all levels containing water.

I was trying to get that feel that the water was all traveling to the center, kind of like a cooling system for the lava there. I tried to make it match up, but I guess I lost some patience with it. I thought it looked okay, but I know it seems a bit jarring on the lines between blocks.

Also, while last time I wasn't as justified (perhaps), this time I really do think the level would look better with Descent than with Fire. It contains no D1 POGs, so conversion would be trivial.

By "D1 POGs" I meant custom textures taken from the D1 exclusive roster. It has no such textures, so changing the PIG is way easier, since you don't have to replace the textures again.

Also, while editing that one minor misalign in the editor, I noticed the secret switch right next to the exit that opens the secret doors on both sides. There are a few things to consider with this:
- Without an afterburner, it takes close to 30 seconds to make it to the exit from the reactor's approximate location
- I don't remember noticing the switch, in the exit tunnel, mostly due to the reason above. Perhaps it would be a better idea to move the switch closer to the beginning of the exit tunnel, so that it's more readily available
- Haven't checked - do the doors stay open, or do they close normally so you only get one shot at both of them?